Norwegian Cruise Line plans to set up in Hong Kong as a base to launch in the Asia cruise market.
This is a very big deal for us," Norwegian president and COO Andy Stuart said.
"We have hired senior people to make sure that we do it in the right way. We are putting a team in place and building a plan that makes sense for the short term and also for the longer term."
Norwegian tapped Hong Kong based Bill Harber, former vice president of market development at Carnival Asia, who will become Norwegian’s president and managing director for Asia.
"We would look at taking a ship to Asia for our regular distribution channels – Europe, North America, Australia. That is one opportunity and it is easier to do and quicker," Stuart added.
"The second opportunity is to take a ship out to Asia for Asians which would be more complicated. They would have different itineraries as a European doesn’t want to do a three day cruise in China, they would want to do a much longer one that covers all the hot spots in Asia."
